Boston-based national litigation boutique Manning Gross + Massenburg is eyeing the busy St. Louis metropolitan area through a tie-up with regional firm Kurowski Shultz.

The merger, announced Thursday, will create a combined firm with 14 coast-to-coast offices and 105 attorneys when completed in January. For Manning Gross, which has been expanding rapidly for the last decade, the move gives it a presence in “one of the most intense litigation areas in the country,” according to name partner John Manning.

John Manning.

Both St. Louis and neighboring Madison County, Illinois, are staples of the American Tort Reform Association's “judicial hellholes” report, with the former remaining a hotbed for talc law suits and the latter continuing to stand out for asbestos litigation.